Future <= Past >= Moment = Question

a Peter anti-rant

Back in my day, everyone, television, sportscasters, teachers, doctors, administrators, politicians, educators, the barber next door, and even the butcher at the local market would talk about the future. The future of sports, the future of education, the future of oil, the future of relationships, the future of here, or the future of whatever was on the radar of everyday existence or not.

Back in my day, conversely, teachers in school were always talking about the past. The world’s past, the nation’s past, the day’s past, the past’s past, the people’s past, and the past of the past of the distant past. In addition, civic leaders would speak of the past, the town’s past, the city’s past, a person’s past, and the past as the revered or reviled past leading up to the present moment.

Today, I am afraid to state that very few people pay attention to the past, and give way too much or just as little thought to the future.

Oh yes; today’s wise clones of their parents pay attention to their collective financial futures; or, they may pay attention to their career futures or their futures as married couples or simply being together.

As for the day to day, or the hour to hour, or the minute to minute, I am afraid that too many do not concern themselves with what happened minutes or seconds ago, and are even less interested in what will happen in the next few hours or years. In other words: they live for the here and now, they concern themselves with the now and here, they obsess about the now, maybe the here, and they are happy when as little thought as necessary is accomplished.

Bottom line: we must remember what happened in our plane of existence 100 millenniums ago, 100 centuries ago, 100 years ago, 100 months ago, 100 weeks ago, 100 days ago, 100 hours ago, 100 minutes ago, 100 seconds ago, and even 100 nanoseconds ago to be alive. And, we must also remember or at least consider what happens 150 nanoseconds from now, 150 seconds from now, 150 minutes from now, 150 hours from now, 150 days from now, 150 weeks from now, and 150 months from now to remain alive; what, no 150 years, centuries or millenniums from now? Truly, I do not want to push the future too far as who am I to go that far into something that is nebulous to say the least or at least controversial to say the most.